The Long Awaited Gospel of God

The gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord~ Romans 1:1-3 (a)

We don't tend to think of Moses primarily as a prophet,  but when he penned the pentateuch he placed on parchment the very first prophecy of the Gospel.

In his account of the fall of mankind he records the words that had been passed down since the time of Eden,  so that we can see from the offset that as soon as sin entered the world,  therefore was a promise of redemption.

When God curses the snake he says,

You will strike his (the offspring's) heel,
And he will crush your head.

Now,  cards on the table,  I go gaga for this. It utterly blows me away. Because not only does it predict the coming of the one who will destroy Satan and his works,  but it predicts something of the nature of the method.

That in the same action that Satan attempts to destroy the promised son, he is himself destroyed.

And that to me is the essence of the crucifixion.

But today I simply want to demonstrate that the gospel was alluded to and prophesied all through scripture.

The Ark is a picture of Christ.  All inside are saved from judgement.

Abraham being willing to sacrifice his promised (and only) son 

Isaac willingly carrying the wood up the hill for his own sacrific. 

The Ram that was provided to take his place,  it's head caught up in a thorny thicket,  shadowing the Crown of Thorns. 

The passover Lamb. 

The Scape Goat, 

Isaiah 53 (and so much more)  which is SO explicit about the Messiah taking on our sins and dying in out place. 

And this is just a small sample of the prophetic references to Jesus contained in,  yes the HOLY scriptures. 

And the phrase used here is 'the gospel of God'.

I am sure that it is used in this context to say that the Gospel comes from God and belongs to God. 

But it seems inescapable to me that we don't see that God himself is the gospel. 

Jesus being promised,  is the promise of his message to,  because Jesus IS his own message. We preach Christ. 

Lenin did no preach Leninism. 

Hitler did not preach Hitler. 

The preached communism and fascism respectively. 

But Christ is the message.  

God is the gospel. 

We have notionally looked at how Jesus,  and indeed Paul came at 'just the right time ' historically speaking. 

No one knew that the promised one would take a few thousand years to come,  but come he did. 

We are dismayed if we see world events going pear shaped but to us fifty years is a long time and no bit of time is more pressing to us than the hour we are in and we won't look much more than fifty years ahead. 

But to God a thousand years is as a day. 

I take from this an incredible sense of security. We may trouble ourselves and worry about Isis or the threat of another ensuing cold war,  or whatever crisis we face,  buy God has got it all under control,  and help works in all things for the good of those that love him. 

And how privileged are we,  who know this gospel of God,  that we were born on this side of his coming? 

And why did he come? 

For this divine exchange,

The righteous for the unrighteous,  to bring us to God. 

That you might know him. 

I pray with Paul,  for myself and for you, 

 

 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit^[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

 

This day,
And all days,

Amen